Monday 30th April 2018

34.1 km (847.2 km)

Knowing that the day would be long I took full advantage of the breakfast buffet, Pauline meantime was clearly banking on a miracle (a restaurant serving food on the Camino) and so showed restraint for which she would suffer later on this the penultimate stage.

The route was varied on a mixture of road and track, through woodland and fields, and taking us through a series of non-descript, mostly asleep, towns but we did manage to find a couple of bars open early in the day for coffee.

Then there was the buying of more ibuprofen to restock Pauline’s travelling pharmacy. This simple task, buying a €1.95 box of 600 mg pills took an age however as it seems the female population of Spain goes to the pharmacy for a chat … and the Spanish ladies like to talk a lot. Even Pauline was frustrated!

Finally escaping with our sanity and ibuprofen, we set off on our afternoon stretch. After an hour, with feelings of “running on empty”, thoughts then turned to a lunch stop. Google maps came to the rescue, but after a short detour we found that restaurant closed! With hunger pangs growing, Pauline decided that the solution was to lance and sew a blister on the sole of her foot and treat it with Betadine, evidently pain trumps hunger, I meantime was still hungry.

The next restaurant on the route was equally rewarding … closed, with two equally disappointed peregrinos sitting outside so we continued to Ponte Ulla, where surely I thought we would find something. The Ponte crosses the river Ulla as does the mega viaduct carrying the new AVE high speed train line (photo) and just over it was an open restaurant; coffee and empanada 🙂

By now we had walked 30 km, leaving a good climb out of the valley and ~5 km to finish.

Our stop for the night was in a Pazo De Galegos; a lovely casa once home to Canon Antonio Lopez Ferreiro a reknowned artist, novelist who discovered the remains of St James which had been hidden when Francis Drake came to plunder the Cathedral of Santiago, so we learned in our pre-dinner lecture delivered by the owner.